Organic Goat Cheese, Yogurt, and Raw Milk from Central Maine

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A Season In Retrospect: part III—Summer

Summer in the north is go-time. It’s a theatrical production we prepare for all winter and then have only one chance to perform.

The days are long and warm (and yes, buggy, but that’s part of it). Working in shorts and short-sleeves is not taken for granted, and that abundant daylight must not be wasted. This is the time to capture and store solar energy in many forms. Again, “if you’re not preparing for winter now, you’re late.”

An idyllic summer image. Note vacancy.

Besides the usual tasks of growing lots of vegetables and trying to keep up with the flood of goat milk, we had some bigger ticket items on the docket: build winter housing for the goats, fence a lot more land, build a big wood shed and stock it…

We had our frenetic agenda and stuck to it, but alongside it things purred along naturally: bees darting and buzzing, goats nipping ripping and chomping their pasture, the scratch scratch peck of chickens…plants silently growing in the garden, the silent growth of the forest, the cycles far greater than ourselves as we scurried about and fretted…

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The loons down on the lakes crooned their haunting nighttime calls, hawks and buzzards and osprey and eagles soared above, winds and rains washed and thrashed the leaves of trees, and thunder echoed in the valleys around. Winter is a time of resting, stillness and contemplation; summer is a time of aliveness and growth.